


Memento Mori

by Druddigonite



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Mental Scarring, Not explicitly gorey but mentions heavy violence, Realistic Interpretation of Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 03:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17480459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Druddigonite/pseuds/Druddigonite
Summary: They didn't come out of this war unscathed.(There are some scars that never fade.)





	Memento Mori

She may have been born into the world blind and helpless, but Toph was born a _fighter_. 

She considered herself a late-bloomer, if not somewhat unconventional. At two she finally found the balance to lift her off the ground that had supported her since birth. Six, and she first learned to see the world while nestled in the belly of a badgermole. Eleven, tasting dust in her mouth and blood roaring in her ears, she finally began to feel _alive_. 

In the Rumbles, there were two things: winners and losers. It as cut and dry as a rock sliced clean. And to be victorious, you had to fight with everything you got, and if you had enough passion, you’d climb to the top. Winners and losers. That’s how it always was, and how it always will be. 

“And we won,” she said hollowly, in the aftermath of Sozin’s Comet. 

She was on the ground again — thank goodness — and she could feel hundreds upon hundreds of bodies littered across the ground. Thousands of fluttering hearts, beating erratically as their owners drew in their last breaths. The fading throes of aftermath merged into a chaotic harmony, thrumming against her veins. 

Wreckages of the war balloons. _There were so many._

“We lost,” She breathed. There’s smoke in her lungs and way, way too much blood on her hands. “Badly.”

She stood in the waning sun, until the last beat faded.

~

In the vast expanse of snowdrifts and ice floes, a little warrior prepared for war.

The snow around him was white, but when he blinked it was speckled dark with stolen lives, stolen from right under his feet. The cold north winds mauled at his exposed skin like the claws of a polar lynx, and with it brought a bitter sense of clarity in the midst of sweat-induced haze. By decree of chief, all men were obligated to help fight against the enemy. 

None made it back. 

It helped the temperature was too cold to cry. Too cold to do anything but _act_ , club chipping at ice as if it were the imperial steel of a firebender uniform. 

Katara was reckless. Katara was his sister. She saw Mother carried away, but Sokka saw the slaughter that painted this fortress, months before she was born. He never realized that against white snow, blood looked almost _black_. 

So let her rage. Let her laugh at his paranoia with the glimmer of sea-jewels in her eyes and the ocean wrapped around her arms. Let her cry into his shoulder while screaming stupid, stupid, stupid Sokka, as her pelts were stained dark from his wounds. 

At least it wasn’t hers. 

When he closed his eyes, he saw gnarled limbs emaciated with smoke, bloated bodies bobbing against the tides, ashes falling down down down to land among the already tainted village. There were scars his sister never would heal with her water, and he could only hope she didn’t have to carry the same burden. Not because she was weak, but because he was her big brother, her last family, and that was the least he could do. 

Except he could already feel the thin tendrils of fear worm her way across his sister’s ashen spirit; try as he might, he was just one guy with a boomerang, a little warrior stumbling through the midst of one big war. They were both scarred — scarring, even now. 

When they finally slept, Sokka dreamed of home.

~

“Does this hurt?” Katara’s fingers ghosted over the red tissue on his stomach. “Let me know if it does.”

Aang watched her as she did. “It doesn’t, no.” In truth, he didn’t feel anything. It was like Katara was touching someone else’s body, like the scar wasn’t even his. It scared him more than he wanted to admit. 

She leaned back with a sigh. “That’s good.” She paused, then — injuries be damned — enveloped Aang in a full body embrace. He could feel her shaking as he weakly returned it. 

“Aang, I— ” Her breath hitched a little, and he hugged her a little tighter. “ —we thought you were...you were…” 

“I know.” His hand felt a little numb as he patted her back, as if it wasn’t his. The night sky was clear and filled with countless stars, the world so wide and uncontrollable, and suddenly he was not the Avatar but a small boy being held in another’s arms. Alive. “I’m sorry.”

~

Uncle eased himself down on the stone, slow and steady, a hand pressed against his distended stomach. It looked like it hurt, yet the old man did not make a sound when Zuko began unraveling the bandages plastered against his chest and shoulder. There were so much of them. Each ripped and boiled with a desperate fire and wrapped, around and around and around, as if the very bind itself would keep his spirit from slipping out.

Fulgurite bloomed across his uncle’s pale complexion. In the epicenter of the wound, just above his heart, the skin was starting to flake off. A stench of rotting flesh hit his nose.

“It is going to scar,” Uncle said, noticing his distress, “but that does not matter. I have survived worst before.” And they both knew. Physical wounds may hurt the heart, but emotional ones gouged out the very soul. 

“That’s not the _point_ , Uncle,” Zuko gritted through strained teeth and an increasingly blurring vision. Pity, that his tear ducts weren’t completely destroyed in Father’s punishment. “You and I both know that.”

“I am fine, Nephew.” Uncle closed his eyes, as if he were asleep. No — as if he had given up. “Do what you must.” 

Funny, Zuko thought, how the meaning of fine changed over the course of their lives. They’ve both survived worse, sure; being alive to see the still-standing walls of Ba Sing Se, to feel the roughened callous of scarred flesh, to taste the tang of blood and sweat and tears proved that. That didn’t make this _fine_ though. _We’ve been through much worse, but that doesn’t make this okay_. 

Except there was nothing remotely fine about anything. The world was at war, had been for many lifetimes. Hundreds of refugees fleeing in droves were ordinary sights, body-strewn battlegrounds were to be expected, seventeen-year-old sons could march in the front lines with nobody batting an eye, his uncle could say that he was well when it didn’t really matter anymore. Everything was normal; nothing was okay. 

“I’m sorry,” Zuko said. His voice was flat; as if he’d stopped caring. (But what’s the point? They were both so _tired_. )

A searing hand pressed against the wound, and this time Uncle could no longer hold in his scream.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on tumblr [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)


End file.
